SUGAR NEWS & REPORTS

High Sugar Stocks Deflate World Market Prices

Share

17,000 tonnes bulk raw sugar in Guadeloupe.

Market Position
International prices have continued to fall for two reasons. Firstly there is a dwindling global demand as a consequence of stock being built up by major importing countries. Secondly, as the Northern Hemisphere cane harvests near completion and the market wait to see the results of the early Centre/South harvest in Brazil.

The dry weather from December to February has resulted in around 540-590 mln tonnes cane damaged. The estimated global surplus for 2013/14 is just under 5.5 mln tonnes of sugar, this is the third successive year of building stocks with production and consumption near equilibrium. The increase in production in India was offset by decreases for Cuba, Mexico and Thailand. This has resulted in an estimated surplus of 2.4 mln tonnes of sugar for the 2014/15 crop.

Europe
Beet harvesting continued until January due to excessive rainfall mid-October in France. Beet plantings for the 2014/15 harvest progressed at a faster level this year due to mild weather since February. On average there is a 2-3% increase in planted areas, particularly in France, Germany and Poland. Production from the 2014/15 crop look set to be higher than the 2013/14 crop which suffered from delayed plantings and wet weather during the beet processing.

Early estimates for the 2014/15 beet crop are 17.6 mln tonnes. The 2013/14 season has been dominated by high stock levels, lower storage capacity resulting in lower prices. In Russia an increase in acreage due to lower grain prices and early planting should increase sugar production to around 4.6 mln tonnes. Harvesting will commence in August. The Ukraine has seen planted acreage up by 30% which could result in 1.8 mln tonnes of sugar being produced. The political disruption has to date not affected the sugar market.

Brazil
Cane crushed for the 2014/15 crop was 580 mln tonnes, producing 32.5 mln tonnes of sugar, which was 1.8 mln tonnes less than in 2013/14. The diversion of cane to sugar was down to 43.6% due to ethanol paying better returns to the cash strapped mills, although the fuel mix remains at 25%. Crushing began in April benefiting from dry and cool weather, so we expect to see improved yields over last year.

Thailand
The extra rainfall, growing time and an increase in planted area earlier in the growing season, followed by dry weather during harvesting has resulted in a record crop, producing 11 mln tonnes of sugar. Recent rainfall during the growing season should help improve prospects for the 2014/15 crop, although a significant amount of rain will need to fall during the rainy season to offset the arid harvest period of the previous crop.

India
A small reduction in planted cane for Uttar Pradesh should not affect the 2014/15 crop as recent rains in central India is excellent for the yield potential. It is expected that production for the 2014/15 crop will be above the 2013/14 output of 24 mln tonnes. With a high level of stocks the mills are expected to export around 1.0 mln tonnes of raw sugar onto the world market.

Pakistan
The sugar mills are reluctant to export raw sugar now that domestic prices have risen by 4%. Total exported sugar for the 2013/14 crop was 750,000 tonnes.

Australia
The 2014/15 cane crop is likely to be below the 4.1 mln tonnes produced in 2013/14 due to Cyclone Ita that has damaged up to 70% of the Queensland crop. The possible loss of cane could be as much as 1-3 mln tonne or 100-250,000 tonne of milled sugar.

USA/Mexico
Freezing temperatures in the Red River Valley delayed beet planting with estimates at a 4% reduction for the 2014/15 beet crop. In April US producers launched an anti-dumping petition against Mexico which could result in duties of up 45% on Mexican imported sugar. In Mexico there is two months remaining before the cane harvesting ends with estimates at 6.0 mln tonnes, down 700,000 tonnes on 2013/14 crop.

China
Production of the 2013/14 crop finished at 13.3 mln tonnes, up 33k tonnes on the previous season. Cane sugar production accounted for 12.3 mln tonnes and beet sugar 746k tonnes. China continues with building a sugar stock, which is almost at 50% of consumption.

Cookie policy

This policy (together with our terms of use and any other documents referred to on it) sets out the basis on which any personal data we collect from you, or that you provide to us, will be processed by us. Please read the following carefully to understand our views and practices regarding your personal data and how we will treat it. By visiting www.ragus.co.uk(“Site”) you are accepting and consenting to the practices described in this policy.

Information you give us. You may give us information about you by filling in forms on our Site or by corresponding with us by phone, e-mail or otherwise. This includes information you provide when you participate in discussion boards or other social media functions on our Site and when you report a problem with our Site. The information you give us may include your name, address, e-mail address and phone number.

Information we collect about you. With regard to each of your visits to our Site we may automatically collect the following information:

technical information, including the Internet protocol (IP) address used to connect your computer to the Internet, your login information, browser type and version, time zone setting, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform;

information about your visit, including the full Uniform Resource Locators (URL) clickstream to, through and from our Site (including date and time); products you viewed or searched for; page response times, download errors, length of visits to certain pages, page interaction information (such as scrolling, clicks, and mouse-overs), and methods used to browse away from the page and any phone number used to call our customer service number.

COOKIES

Our Site only uses cookies required by Google Analytics. This technology and what a cookie actually does, is explained below.

By using our Site you consent to the use of these cookies.

We do not accept responsibility for cookies on external websites referred to from our Site.

A cookie is a parcel of text sent back and forth between a web browser and the server it accesses to collect data about a given browser, along with the information requested and sent by the browser’s operator (the visitor). Google Analytics is a widely-used web analytics service provided by Google, Inc to generate statistics about visitors to websites. Google stores the information collected by its cookies on servers in the United States. Google may also transfer this information to third parties where required to do so by law, or where such third parties process the information on Google's behalf. Google will not associate your IP address with any other information held by Google. By using our Site, you consent to the processing of information by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.

The following Google Analytics cookies are used on our Site:

Name:_utma Description: This cookie is typically written to your browser upon your first visit to our Site from that web browser. If you delete the cookie and you subsequently visit our Site a new _utma cookie is written with a different unique ID. This cookie is used to determine unique visitors to our Site and it is updated with each page view. It is provided with a unique ID that Google Analytics uses to ensure both the validity and accessibility of the cookie as an extra security measure. Expiration: 2 years from set/update.

Name: _utmb Description: This cookie is used to establish and continue a user session with our Site. When you view a page on our Site, the Google Analytics code attempts to update this cookie. If it does not find the cookie, a new one is written and a new session is established. Each time you visit a different page on our Site, this cookie is updated to expire in 30 minutes, thus continuing a single session for as long as your activity continues within 30-minute intervals. This cookie expires when you pause on a page on our Site for longer than 20 minutes. Expiration: 30 minutes from set/update.

Name: _utmc Description: This cookie is no longer used by the ga.js tracking code to determine session status. Historically, this cookie operated in conjunction with the _utmb cookie to determine whether or not to establish a new session for the user. For backwards compatibility purposes with websites still using the urchin.js tracking code, this cookie will continue to be written and will expire when the user exits the browser. Expiration: Not set

Name: _utmz Description: This cookie stores the type of referral used by you to reach our Site, whether via a direct method, a referring link, a website search or a campaign such as an email link. It is used to calculate search engine traffic, campaigns and page navigation within our Site. The cookie is updated with each page view to our Site. Expiration: 6 months from set/update

For more information about Google Analytics cookies and how to remove them please refer to the following information from Google:

to provide you with information about goods and services we offer that are similar to those that you have already enquired about;

to provide you, or permit selected third parties to provide you, with information about goods or services we feel may interest you.

to notify you about changes to our service;

to ensure that content from our Site is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer.

Information we collect about you. We will use this information:

to administer our Site and for internal operations, including troubleshooting, data analysis, testing, research, statistical and survey purposes;

to improve our Site to ensure that content is presented in the most effective manner for you and for your computer;

to allow you to participate in interactive features of our service, when you choose to do so;

as part of our efforts to keep our Site safe and secure;

to measure or understand the effectiveness of advertising we serve to you and others, and to deliver relevant advertising to you;

to make suggestions and recommendations to you and other users of our Site about goods or services that may interest you or them.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR INFORMATION

We may share your personal information with any member of our group, which means our subsidiaries, our ultimate holding company and its subsidiaries, as defined in section 1159 of the UK Companies Act 2006.

We may share your information with selected third parties including:

Business partners, suppliers and sub-contractors for the performance of any contract we enter into with them or you.

Analytics and search engine providers that assist us in the improvement and optimisation of our Site.

We may disclose your personal information to third parties:

In the event that we sell or buy any business or assets, in which case we may disclose your personal data to the prospective seller or buyer of such business or assets.

If Ragus Sugars Manufacturing Limited or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case personal data held by it about its customers will be one of the transferred assets.

If we are under a duty to disclose or share your personal data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to enforce or apply our terms of use ragus.co.uk and other agreements; or to protect the rights, property, or safety of Ragus Sugars (Manufacturing) Limited, our customers, or others.

WHERE WE STORE YOUR PERSONAL DATA

The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). By submitting your personal data, you agree to this transfer, storing or processing. We will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this privacy policy.

All information you provide to us is stored on our secure servers.

Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although we will do our best to protect your personal data, we cannot guarantee the security of your data transmitted to our Site; any transmission is at your own risk. Once we have received your information, we will use strict procedures and security features to try to prevent unauthorised access.

YOUR RIGHTS

You have the right to ask us not to process your personal data for marketing purposes. We will usually inform you (before collecting your data) if we intend to use your data for such purposes or if we intend to disclose your information to any third party for such purposes. You can exercise your right to prevent such processing by checking certain boxes on the forms we use to collect your data. You can also exercise the right at any time by contacting us at 830 Yeovil Road Slough Berkshire SL1 4JG or support@ragus.co.uk.

Our Site may, from time to time, contain links to and from the websites of our partner networks, advertisers and affiliates. If you follow a link to any of these websites, please note that these websites have their own privacy policies and that we do not accept any responsibility or liability for these policies. Please check these policies before you submit any personal data to these websites.

ACCESS TO INFORMATION

The Act gives you the right to access information held about you. Your right of access can be exercised in accordance with the Act. Any access request may be subject to a fee of £10 to meet our costs in providing you with details of the information we hold about you.

CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Any changes we may make to our privacy policy in the future will be posted on this page and, where appropriate, notified to you by e-mail. Please check back frequently to see any updates or changes to our privacy policy.

CONTACT US

Questions, comments and requests regarding this privacy policy are welcomed and should be addressed to 830 Yeovil Road Slough Berkshire SL1 4JG or refer to the contact us section of this site.